Italian President Giorgia Meloni released a video in English recently explaining how Leftist European political parties hold on to power in the face of election defeat after election defeat.
“Governments have not been the outcome of what the citizens shows by voting, but rather have been the outcome of agreements often under the table between the same parties that were fighting each other in the electoral campaign,” Meloni said in the video.
The crux of the scheme relies on party coalitions. In parliamentary systems, many numerous parties run candidates, some further left, some further right, many somewhere in between.
“In these 10 years, the left, which has failed to win elections in Italy since as far back as 2006, has managed to stay in government almost all the time. In a democracy, normally those who lose elections should go to opposition,” Meloni said in the video.
While it would be uncommon for say, one of 10 parties to win 51 percent of overall votes in a nation, hypothetically, one party may win 30 percent of total votes, while the other 9 parties each win less than 30 percent. If some of those other 9 parties form a coalition however, their overall cumulative percentage of election wins can overtake the more popular party that garnered the 30 percent of votes, pushing a group of less popular parties into the ruling class.
“For too many years in Italy, those who lost elections find themselves in government, achieving very bad results. We want Italy to return to being that great nation, dynamic and innovative esteemed all over the world that strongly contributed to European civilization. We’re ready to launch a new season of stability, freedom, and prosperity for Italy, whether the left likes it or not,” Meloni said in the video.
Coalitions are a default result of parliamentary systems. One recent example is the French elections from July where the right-wing party that was ahead was overtaken by a left-wing coalition in another round of voting.
“Against all expectations, the 2nd round of the French parliamentary elections brought the Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP) coalition of the Left and far left to the top of the poll. President Macron’s camp and its allies came second, while the Rassemblement National (RN), despite emerging as favourites from the 1st round, finished third. An ungovernable France is taking shape for the next few weeks—with none of the three blocs able to form a sufficient majority to govern,” Hélène de Lauzun said in The European Conservative on July 8. “In the first round of legislative elections on June 30th, the RN came out on top with a score of over 30%. But the ‘republican front’ was reconstituted with renewed vigour to prevent the party of Jordan Bardella and Marine Le Pen from reaching the gates of power.”
Meloni herself had to eye a coalition with a centrist party, watering down the right-wing ideals the Italian people largely voted in favor of.
